1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a suspension for supporting a magnetic head slider for reading and/or writing data with respect to a recording medium such as a hard disc device, and a method of manufacturing a base part that is one component of the suspension.
2. Background Art
Enhancement in resonance characteristic and enhancement in impact resistance are desired in the magnetic head suspension.
That is, the resonance frequency of the magnetic head suspension must be increased in order to rapidly move the mounted magnetic head slider in the seek direction to a target track on the recording medium such as a hard disc drive.
The impact resistance must be enhanced to prevent the magnetic head slider from jumping in a Z direction (direction orthogonal to the recording surface of the recording medium) and damaging the recording surface of the recording medium when impact is applied while the magnetic head slider is positioned at a load position (i.e., while the magnetic head slider is in a floating state over the recording medium).
However, enhancement in resonance characteristic and enhancement in impact resistance counteract each other.
If the thickness of a member configuring the magnetic head suspension is increased, for example, the rigidity of the magnetic head suspension increases and the resonance characteristic is enhanced, but the impact resistance degrades due to increase in weight.
Regarding this point, it has been proposed to enhance the resonance characteristic by attaching a damping member made of a viscoelastic material having a large damping characteristics at a load beam part in the magnetic head suspension, instead of enhancing the resonance characteristic by increasing rigidity (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 59-180855).
The configuration disclosed in the prior art document is effective in reducing the amplitude of the resonance mode of the magnetic head suspension by the damping member while preventing increase in weight of the magnetic head suspension as much as possible, but has drawbacks in that cost increases due to increase in the number of components, and the vibration characteristic varies depending on attachment precision of the damping member.